"My culture is cursing": Linux kernel world is a hostile place—by design.

Profanity and insults have long been management tactics of Linux creator Linus Torvalds. He once memorably gave the middle finger to Nvidia; separately, he announced that he would not change Linux "to deep-throat Microsoft." Torvalds has also shown no qualms about being rude to those who disagree with him.

When Torvalds is fighting for the open source way against proprietary software companies, his abrasive style may elicit cheers. But developers who volunteer to improve the Linux kernel and find themselves on the receiving end of a Torvalds tirade might prefer a different management style. One developer is now calling out Linux's leader for turning the world of open source kernel development into a hostile working environment.

“Keep it professional”

The Linux "workplace" is primarily a mailing list in which developers discuss changes to the kernel. The criticism of Torvalds came yesterday from developer Sarah Sharp, a software engineer at Intel who has made numerous contributions to the Linux kernel in the past seven years. Sharp wrote:

Seriously, guys? Is this what we need in order to get improve -stable? Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence. Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse.

Not *fucking* cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists.

Let's discuss this at Kernel Summit where we can at least yell at each other in person. Yeah, just try yelling at me about this. I'll roar right back, louder, for all the people who lose their voice when they get yelled at by top maintainers. I won't be the nice girl anymore.

Sarah Sharp

Sharp's e-mail quoted statements from Torvalds such as "Have you guys *seen* Greg? The guy is a freakish giant. He *should* scare you. He might squish you without ever even noticing" and "Greg, the reason you get a lot of stable patches seems to be that you make it easy to act as a door-mat. Clearly at least some people say 'I know this patch isn't important enough to send to Linus, but I know Greg will silently accept it after the fact, so I'll just wait and mark it for stable.' You may need to learn to shout at people." (Torvalds' target is Linux kernel chief Greg Kroah-Hartman.)

“Linus, you’re one of the worst offenders”

The argument over whether such language is appropriate then moved off-list, with Torvalds trying to make the conversation private and Sharp making it public again. "Oh, FFS, I [was] just called out on private email for 'playing the victim card,'" Sharp wrote. "I will repeat: this is not just about me, or other minorities. I should not have to ask for professional behavior on the mailing lists. Professional behavior should be the default."

At another point, Sharp added, "I am serious about this. Linus, you're one of the worst offenders when it comes to verbally abusing people and publicly tearing their emotions apart." She noted that while Torvalds has shown that he can politely tell developers their work needs changes, "You just don't want to take the time to be polite to everyone."

Torvalds' responses to Sharp's e-mails made it clear he has no intention of changing the way he writes to people on the Linux kernel mailing list. He even claimed to be something of an oppressed minority, saying Sharp should be sensitive to his Finnish culture and its reliance on cursing. In response to being called "one of the worst offenders," he wrote:

Yes. And I do it partly (mostly) because it's who I am, and partly because I honestly despise being subtle or "nice".

The fact is, people need to know what my position on things are. And I can't just say "please don't do that", because people won't listen. I say "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle," and I mean it.

And I definitely am not willing to string people along, either. I've had that happen too—not telling people clearly enough that I don't like their approach, they go on to re-architect something, and get really upset when I am then not willing to take their work.

Sarah, first off, I don't have that many tools at hand. Secondly, I simply don't believe in being polite or politically correct. And you can point at all those cultural factors where some cultures are not happy with confrontation (and feel free to make it about gender too—I think that's almost entirely cultural too). And please bring up "cultural sensitivity" while at it. And I'll give you back that same "cultural sensitivity". Please be sensitive to _my_ culture too.

Do you really want to oppress a minority? Because Finns are a minority compared to almost any other country. If you want to talk cultural sensitivity, I'll join you. But my culture includes cursing.

In another e-mail, Torvalds told Sharp that "the 'victim card' is exactly about trying to enforce your particular expectations on others, and trying to do so in a very particular way. It's the old 'think of the children' argument. And it's bogus. Calling things 'professional' is just more of the same—trying to enforce some kind of convention on others by trying to claim that it's the only acceptable way."

Torvalds concluded:

Because if you want me to "act professional," I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.

Clearly, Torvalds has an aversion to the corporate world. He works full-time on the kernel, with his work being funded by the nonprofit Linux Foundation (which in turn is funded by IBM, HP, Intel and dozens of other companies). The Linux Foundation has traditionally taken an extremely hands-off approach to Torvalds' work. We asked the Foundation if it has any response to Sharp's comments or any plans to discuss the matter with Torvalds, but we didn't receive an immediate response.

“Civil development discourse”

Sharp describes herself on LinkedIn as "a huge advocate of open source, open hardware, and Linux." She began contributing to Linux in 2006 "through an Intel Undergraduate Research Grant, [in which] I was funded to redesign the current Linux USB filesystem to better fit into the standard Unix I/O stream model." She is also the author of the Linux USB 3.0 host controller driver.

Torvalds' management hasn't prevented Linux from becoming one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology on the planet, and Sharp sounds unlikely to walk away from Linux development—but concerns about a hostile environment might have that effect on others.

Developer Neil Brown noted on the Linux kernel mailing list that "scolding people senior developers in front of newcomers ... is not likely to encourage people to want to become senior developers." Another developer, Stefano Stabellini, wrote that "I think there is a way to get the point across without cursing. One can be clear and decisive without 'bursting'. It's easy to mistake cursing on the quality of the code for a personal attack."

On Twitter, numerous developers thanked Sharp for her efforts. One called himself an "ex-kernel hacker," and another said, "Thanks for standing up for politeness/respect. If it works, I'll start doing Linux kernel dev. It's been too scary for years."

Longtime technologist, open source software user, and journalist Sean Michael Kerner expressed hope that Sharp's protests might help Linux development circles become more welcoming to those who prefer polite collaboration over confrontation. On InternetNews.com, Kerner wrote:

It's obvious to me that Sharp is right. It should be obvious to all decent human beings that violence and threats of abuse have no place in civil development discourse either.

Do I expect Linus to change? No. Do I hope he will? Yes.

Will Sharp change anything? I sure hope so. The fact that she's standing up and making her voice heard is the start of a conversation that should have started a long time ago.

UPDATE: Torvalds told Wired today that he looks forward to discussing "workflow" issues at the upcoming Kernel Summit. “It’s maybe easy to forget for outsiders. I’ve been doing this for 20+ years, and people don’t think about *why* I’m still doing it,” Torvalds wrote in an e-mail. “I care. Deeply.” However, Torvalds doesn't want a "code of conduct," saying that "venting of frustrations and anger is actually necessary, and trying to come up with some ‘code of conduct’ that says that people should be ‘respectful’ and ‘polite’ is just so much crap and bullshit.”

This seems less about being "professional" and more about being "courteous". Mr. Torvalds doesn't seem to get the concepts of manners, civil discourse, or polite discussion. While he might be correct in advocating a more direct management style within the Linux development community, he doesn't have to be rude, arrogant, or obnoxious to do that.